Thursday night. It really is alarming how much the old routine is reasserting itself… This doesn’t feel like four whole workdays have passed: the routine is back, and it’s gobbling up my time, with every evening more or less the same.

The world was mad, and now it’s getting madder: several days ago, four white cops in Minnesota killed George Floyd, a black man, with impunity and knowing they were being filmed. They got fired, but that wasn’t nearly enough. Now the city of Minneapolis is on fire: a Target store was looted, a McDonald’s was set on fire, there are bricks flying through police department windows… The brazen nature of this particular extrajudicial execution is far worse than any of the ones that had come before: Freddie Gray, Michael Brown Jr., Philando Castile, and far too many others.

Earlier today on Twitter, some were musing out loud that since all the wealthy folks have fled major cities, their houses are just sitting there, filled with goodies… Even using the official unemployment metric (which typically excludes freelancers, gig workers, etc), there are now over 40 million unemployed Americans. There will be much more looting, and riots, and unrest. I’ll be glad to be wrong on this particular prediction.

One thing I didn’t see coming at all is the permanent closure of museums. The Living Computer Museum in Seattle, founded by Paul Allen, said they’ll be shutting down until further notice. Others will follow, I’m sure. It’s a bit sad: I’d spent 3.5 years of my life in Seattle, and I never once visited that place. Here is hoping that they (and others) will reopen: as billionaires go, Paul Allen was almost as benign as one can get, and that particular museum was mighty unique.